Ketèlbey’s most popular works appear to be a series of programmatic Orchestral tone poems like this one based on a verse from his own poem In A Monastery Garden and rendered in G for easy Piano. Composer and arranger Albert W Ketèlbey is now almost unknown except for his work Bells Across the Meadows but until the time of the Second World War he strode the country’s musical stage like a giant of light musical entertainment. In 1929 he was declared ‘Britain’s greatest composer’ according to the number of performances of his works. Over the course of his career he was a church Organist musical director at London’s Vaudeville Theatre editor to several music publishingfirms and Music Director of the Columbia Gramophone Company.Arranger composer and pianist John Schaum was an American educator who frustrated with the lack of appropriate works for his students created his own books. Over his career he arranged hundreds of works for student pianists and they are still in use today.
